The War Service Homes Commissioner has forwarded for advice the following memorandum:

I am in receipt of a letter from the Secretary of the Country Fire Brigades Board dated the 2nd instant which reads as follows:

This Board has recently had under consideration the question of your Commission contributing to the annual revenue of the Board in the same way as the registered insurance companies and private firms conducting fire insurance business-i.e. on the basis of the amount of premiums received during the previous 12 months; and it has been decided that under section 45 of the Fire Brigades Act the Commission is liable for its quota of such contributions. A form will accordingly be sent to you early next year for completion and return, to enable the Board to assess the amount to be contributed.

Your opinion is asked whether the Commissioner is liable at law to contribute to the upkeep of the various Fire Brigades Boards in this and each of the other States. Section 42 of the Fire Brigades Act 1915 of Victoria provides for the contribution by insurance companies of a certain proportion of the estimated annual expenditure in the Metropolitan or Country Fire Districts.

Although the definition of insurance company contained in the Victorian Act and possibly in the Acts of some of the other States may be sufficiently wide to cover the War Service Homes Commissioner, I do not think the Commonwealth

should admit any liability to supply returns or make contributions to a body operated under State law.

It has been the practice of the Commonwealth, in certain cases where services are rendered by public authorities constituted under a State Act, to pay voluntarily an amount approximately equivalent to the amount which the Commonwealth would be liable to pay if the Act applied to the Commonwealth, and at the same time to refuse to admit any liability for such payment.

If the payments which are made by fire insurance companies under State law to fire brigades are in the nature of payments for services rendered, and if the fire brigades are prepared to render similar services to the War Service Homes Commissioner provided that payment is made by him, I suggest that the question of making to the fire brigades a voluntary contribution approximately equivalent to the amount which the Commonwealth would be liable to pay if bound by the provisions of State Acts should receive consideration, it being made clear to the Boards, at the time any payment is made or arrangement entered into, that the Commonwealth does not admit any legal liability to pay the amount, but makes the payment voluntarily.

[Vol. 16, p. 384]